That broadly coincides with Ramadan (16 May to 15 June) when the ME3 airlines often reduce their schedules. The odd thing is that they didn't do it from the start. This will play into the hands of the route doom mongers.
The advertising campaign for the Bristol and the South West will be starting in earnest shortly but as for South Wales they have advertised using radio, social media and Wales Online has promoted the route heavily. They've also conducted events at the Celtic Manor and in Pembrokeshire. Apart from TV adds i can't think of anything else they can do. Like TLY says Ramadan is at that time. Cardiff is a new route so their will be some chopping and changing and to be honest 5 weekly is probably a better frequency to start the route with.
22 on a Qatar 787 8. Also for the business cabin there will be business passengers from abroad and of course Welsh Government officials, i doubt they'll be travelling economy!
Let's hope so but remember that the Continental service between Bristol and Newark had only 16 business-first seats but a lack of full-fare passengers in that cabin was one of the reasons that CO eventually pulled out. Although BRS has a larger and generally wealthier catchment it might be that its long haul passengers are more wedded to LHR than CWL's as LHR is really just along the M4.22 on a Qatar 787 8. Also for the business cabin there will be business passengers from abroad and of course Welsh Government officials, i doubt they'll be travelling economy!
I think we have to remember as well that filling the business cabin for US flights will be different from filling a Qatar cabin. With a route to New York you are generally accessing 1 city and yes while it is a hub many people heading to the West Coast or the South or the Midwest or Canada might choose Amsterdam while Doha gives access to more potential connections to South East Asia, China and 1 stop options to Australia and New Zealand. If you look at many regional airports across the UK they seem to be able to sustain a ME3 route better than a NYC so i'd suggest it might be easier to fill an ME3 Business cabin than an US3 cabin.
Well it might but the CO route to EWR was certainly not just used be NYC-bound passengers. Our son used it regularly in the business-first cabin for work and often used the massive CO (as it then was) hub at EWR for onward travel across North America as did many others to his knowledge. Having said that, at times it was a better use of his time to travel direct from LHR to some destinations in North America. The BRS-EWR route worked up to 50% North America originating passengers.
I think you are right. No matter how well the CO route at BRS was doing it would have made little sense for CO to have maintained it once they gained access to LHR which of course they didn't have when the BRS route started in 2005.
It is noticeable though that the ME3 seem to be expanding in the regional airports in the UK by adding either extra flights at their current airports, upgrading equipment and opening up new destinations. Whereas the US3 seem to be retreating from them or in the case of Delta handing over MAN to Virgin. I wonder how long it'll be before Virgin gets some A321neo's to takeover Delta's Scottish routes?
They've also reduced the service to 5 x weekly for the winter months so it's more likely that Ramadan is the reason in my opinion. Although the reduction is not completely in line with Ramadan in 2018 (mid May to Mid June) it would probably have been confusing to have started the service with a daily schedule for a couple of weeks and then dropping to 5 x weekly.
It may well be possible in the future then that Cardiff's winter season is from November to beginning of June so it could be 5 weekly and go to 7 weekly from June to October. Actually coincidentally enough Iberia Express starts middle of June as well.
I wouldn't be surprised that with the Six Nations that there is a big waiting list for advertising same with the Autumn Internationals. Many of the advertisers will be on long term contracts as well. So it could be a while before the airport gets the chance to advertise at those games. TV advertising is also very expensive and personally if they have that in the budget i'd spend it on TV advertising over the bridge.
They were probably under pressure from the Welsh Government to start it daily and may have adopted a wait and see attitude. Liam has suggested poor bookings because the holiday season doesn't start till mid June.
If the Welsh Government did have an influence it's poor judgement on their part not to have left it to the airline and poor judgement on the part of the airline for listening to the government given the subsequent reduction.
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